It covers a wide arc of territory from centre-south, moving north and north-east leading to – and including – the Causeway.

The beaches facing Malaysia and Indonesia are, of course, special targets.

The person wandering around part of the forested Mandai area and its quiet neighbourhood would probably be able to see some of the 1000-strong special and land police and troops searching for an escaped detainee.

The hunt for the leader of the Jemaah Islamiah (JI) terror network in Singapore, Mas Selamat Kastari, was launched 21 days ago after he escaped from the Whitley Detention Centre.

Whitley Road is in south-central Singapore but the search spread out as the days increased. Today no one has any firm idea where he is.

Nearer the heavily-used Causeway, the artery linking Malaysia, the situation is grimmer – long delays, angry drivers and disruption of two-way trade and short-term visits.

From there the tourist who ventures out east and south after sunset may stumble across a scene straight out of the Emergency Days in northern Malaya when forces were tracking the men of then Malayan Communist Party leader Chin Peng.

The tourist may see uniformed men stationed on the road facing the thick forests – one every 10m – in an attempt to box the fugitive in while other men carefully comb the interior.

Then at daybreak, he might even see plainclothes men knocking on doors to warn residents and distribute posters of Mas Selamat. Singapore may be a small island, but it sure is large in this sort of work.

The biggest manhunt started on Feb 27 when the wily off-and-on mechanic escaped through a toilet at the visitors’ meeting place of the Detention Centre near Thompson Road.

The daring escape has delivered a blow to Singapore’s reputation of efficiency and ironclad security when it comes to fighting terrorism.

Authorities believe he acted alone and is still on the island and not – as popularly believed – carried out with outside help. When he walks fast, Mas Selamat hobbles a little.

A lone prisoner limping away unaided from a well-guarded institution shocked Singaporeans, who had believed this sort of thing could happen only in Indonesia or the Philippines.

For this big blow to Singapore’s international image, a number of people yelled for the resignation of Home Affairs Minister Wong Kan Seng, who is also Deputy Prime Minister.

As the First Assistant Secretary-General of the ruling People’s Action Party, Wong is – at least on paper – considered a contender to succeed Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong.

Even if that had been true before, it is no longer so now. In fact, Singaporeans are speculating, if and when the fallout comes, how he will be affected.

At the moment, the public blame, although fierce, is taking second place to the urgency of finding Mas Selamat before he can flee to Indonesia to plan a hit on Singapore.

He was detained in Indonesia three years ago and handed over to Singapore for leading the island’s terrorist network that allegedly planned to steal a plane and crash it into Changi International Airport as well as bombing US and Western embassies.

Many people think he may already be in Indonesia with his Indonesian JI colleagues. Both Jakarta and Kuala Lumpur say he’s not in their land.

Minister Mentor Lee Kuan Yew isn’t absolutely sure. Blaming it on complacency, he said that if Mas Selamat was still here he would be caught eventually, but if he had run off to Indonesia it would be harder to catch him.

When that happens Singapore could expect him to organise a hit on Singapore, Lee added.

Meanwhile, every day that he remains free is a further test on Singapore’s well-heeled system.

Can all its top scholarly brains and high-tech systems succeed in catching a limping man, alone and unaided, in this island state?

The manhunt has produced many leads that led to nowhere. People reported seeing him here and there.

One blogger said that at an MRT 7-Eleven shop two employees actually served Mas Selamat.

“When he came into the store, they suspected it was him but acted naturally to avoid confrontation whatsoever, but called the police soon after he left,” the blogger said.

When the police came, he was gone.

Earlier, a mother of three wrote to the Straits Times that she saw the refugee an hour after he had escaped on Feb 27 walking along Thomson Road.

She was on Mount Pleasant Road, a short distance from the detention centre, when she saw him approach a stranger. She had just finished work that day and was heading back to her home in Bishan.

“I saw a Malay man on the other side of Thomson Road, walking on the pavement against the flow of traffic on that side. He looked very disoriented, very dishevelled, like he was in a daze.

“He didn’t look like he knew where he was going or like he was looking for someone,” said the lecturer in communication skills.

“He had a limp in his left leg. He was dressed in some sort of brown or beige outfit, which looked like a T-shirt.”

There was a Chinese woman dressed all in white walking on the pavement towards him and she was talking on her mobile phone, said the unidentified woman.

When they came towards each other, the man held out his hand, looking like he was asking for money, but she ignored him, she said. Nothing came out of the report.

The agonising, nail-biting search continues with no let-up.

o Seah Chiang Nee is a veteran journalist and editor of the information website littlespeck.com

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